Elinborg looked at the condom.

“At least he practised safe sex,” she said.

“Not safe enough,” Sigurdur Oli said.

At that point the district medical officer arrived, accompanied by a member of the hotel staff who then went back along the corridor. The medical officer was very fat too, although nowhere near a match for the hotel manager. When he squeezed into the room, Elinborg darted back out for air.

“Hello, Erlendur,” the medical officer said.

“What does it look like?” Erlendur asked.

“Heart attack, but I need a better look,” replied the medical officer, who was known for his appalling sense of humour.

Erlendur looked out at Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg, who were grinning from ear to ear.

“Do you know when it happened?” Erlendur asked.

“Can’t be very long ago. Some time during the last two hours. He’s hardly begun to go cold. Have you located his reindeer?”

Erlendur groaned.

The medical officer lifted his hand from the body.

“I’ll sign the certificate,” he said. “You send it to the mortuary and they’ll open him up there. They say that orgasm is a kind of moment of death,” he added, looking down at the body. “So he had a double.”

“A double?” Erlendur didn’t understand him.

“Orgasm, I mean,” the medical officer said. “You’ll take photographs, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Erlendur said.

“They’ll look nice in his family album.”

“He doesn’t appear to have any family,” Erlendur said and looked around the room again. “So you’re done for the time being?” he asked, eager to put an end to the wisecracks.

The district medical officer nodded, squeezed back out of the room and went down the corridor.

“Won’t we have to close down the hotel?” Elinborg asked, and noticed the manager gasp at her question. “Stop all traffic in and out. Question everyone staying here and all the staff? Close the airports. Stop ships leaving port…”